1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method for remote maintenance of technical devices as well as a computer-readable storage medium on which is provided a program to execute the method on a data processing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Technical devices such as, for example, computers, medical-technical image devices, medical workstations, industrial system controls or automobiles and airplanes are as a rule serviced by highly-specialized maintenance technicians. Maintenance measures can include both the remedy of technical errors and the modification of the functionality of the technical device. Different maintenance technicians are frequently used for different maintenance measures. Additionally, maintenance technicians are specialized to different technical devices as well as to different components of devices.
The high degree of specialization makes the selection of a suitable maintenance technician dependent on the respective device and on the respective necessary maintenance measure. In order to be able to implement maintenance measures quickly and flexibly, maintenance teams that implement maintenance measures via remote data connections are becoming accepted in increasing measure.
However, the remote maintenance of technical devices brings with it problems for the security of electronic data of the technical devices. On the one hand, a remote data connection that is to be established from a maintenance technician to a device to be serviced must be protected from unauthorized access by a third party. For this purpose, for example, encrypted data connections, non-public data lines or password-protected data access can be resorted to. In all cases, the establishment of a remote data connection by one of the technical devices is only then allowed when a successful electronic identification of the connection partner has been implemented.
On the other hand, the remote maintenance brings with it the problem that a maintenance technician can in principle also obtain access to confidential data stored in the device to be serviced. Depending on the data access rights of the maintenance technician necessary for the servicing operation, such a possibility of access to confidential data can be an undesired side effect. The possibility of access can, however, also be necessary for maintenance to be performed and can be indispensable for the completion of the maintenance. The latter can, for example, be the case when an error behavior of the technical device can only be demonstrated by accessing confidential data.
The confidential data can, for example, be patient data, secret research papers, development information as well as know-how or demographic data. The servicing of devices that work with such data can make the access to these data necessary, however it can also make necessary only a partial access, or can be possible completely without access. The extent of the necessary data access can be estimated by the maintenance technician in the preliminary stages of a maintenance measure using the intended maintenance measure.
However, the rigid limitation of the data access rights to a previously estimated necessary scope of access would make the implementation of maintenance measures inflexible. In addition to this, a specialist that possesses sufficient knowledge of the device would have to conduct the maintenance measure on the side of the technical device in order to be able to adjust the data access rights to the scope estimated by the maintenance technician. However, as stated above, it could be required that the access to confidential data is necessary for specific maintenance measures. The access to specific confidential data, for example patient data, can, however, be completely prohibited via legal regulations for an employee (thus, for example, for a maintenance technician from outside the company) who is not approved for the work with the technical device and the confidential data.
Conventional mechanisms to monitor data access rights, on the one hand, do not exhibit the necessary flexibility to enable adaptations of the access rights by a non-specialist operating personnel on the side of the device to be maintained, dependent on an intended maintenance measure. This can require in all cases only administrators and technical experts. On the other hand, they offer no possibility on a legal basis to enable access to data by maintenance technicians outside the firm that may not be allowed such an access based on confidential or legal regulations.